


You're not getting rid of me that easy

by Dooiney_Oie



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Additional warnings in the notes for each chapter, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bc there's.... quite a lot of them, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon compliant up until the end of tools of rust bc that's when I started writing it, Gen, I PROMISE THIS IS FUNNY AS WELL AS SAD, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In that weird vein of "yes he's dead but also he's fine? But he IS dead", Other, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24962941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dooiney_Oie/pseuds/Dooiney_Oie
Summary: You know how this story goes. A family that splinters and breaks, a set of two that's suddenly struck down to one.Or at least, it looks that way to the living.-The AU I've been affectionately calling the Guardian Angel Ben AU, aka "the junoverse, but Benten is silently haunting his brother and has some opinions about his life choices."
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 33
Kudos: 145





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning that this first chapter is VERY rough, guys. It explicitly deals with ben's death and the aftermath of its effects on juno, so we have CONTENT WARNINGS FOR:
> 
> \- Child abuse & murder of a child by a parent  
> \- Brief but relatively graphic description of a fatal injury  
> \- Grief & loss of a family member  
> \- Alcoholism/alcohol abuse  
> \- Implied drug use/addiction  
> \- Attempted suicide, self harm & severe depression  
> \- Vomiting (just the once but it's there)  
> \- Vaguely implied sexual content
> 
> I think that's everything but please let me know if I've missed anything, and just to reassure you all this chapter DOES end on an optimistic note, the same way I intend for the whole fic to go in general. I'm trying to keep to the general tone of the junoverse here, so you know how it's gonna go - hitting some dark notes, but coming out the other side & healing at the end of it all.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The day it all ends is a day gone just a little bit too wrong.

It's a whole cloud of flipped coins all landing the wrong way up, really. Ma's having a bad day, and Juno's gone radio-silent, which means he's either got his work blinkers on or _he's_ having a bad day... or he's been kidnapped again. Always kind of hard to tell which one it is with him - but he'll be fine, probably. Hopefully. He's got a perfect track record on getting out of tough spots without dying.

Maybe Ben might call the precinct tomorrow though, if he's still not answering. Or check the sewers, if push really comes to shove.

The point is, it's a collection of hours full of dozens and dozens of tiny, wrong things that amount to Ben having a pretty goddamn rough day himself - which does happen, on occasion, even though it's not as often as ma or Juno, but it _does_ happen. He's just... _so_ tired. Ready to lock the city outside the apartment out for the night and collapse into bed for at least ten hours, maybe more. Depends if ma will let him sleep.

He makes it all the way to his bedroom door before he hears, " _Little monster._ "

Ben's hackles go up - a result of being able to read a tone in four syllables or less since the age of five. He and Juno had a system, when they were younger, a scale that they still sometimes use. Whenever one of them entered a room that ma and the other were in, they'd hold up a hand where only the other could see. One finger was safe. Three was dicey. Five, and whoever had just walked in should turn around and get out of there straight away.

This kind of feels like a three, maybe four. But, as much as he hates to sound like lady raincloud, his gut is telling him to be careful.

He doesn't turn, but he can feel exactly where she is, standing just a few feet down the hall. "Did you hide mommy's pills again?"

"No, ma," he says quietly, praying that this will be one of the times she comes to her senses before the shouting starts. Those times always feel like a reward, a shining moment for all the hours of patient practise. They make him hopeful that one day she'll be better again. "They should be in your bag."

"Well, they're not _in_ my bag," she says, her voice already starting to rise. "You think you can steal from me and I won't notice? You think you can ruin everything _else_ after--"

"Ma, I didn't touch your pills. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't interrupt me, you little brat! Backtalking just like you always do, blaming _me_ like everything isn't _your_ fault, like you didn't just _hand over_ \--"

Ben closes his eyes and leans sideways against the doorframe as he tunes her out. She thinks he's Juno again - not that Juno deserves this either, but the blame speeches are always meant for him for some reason. It's too much for him to deal with today. He's tired, and irritated, and it's not just ma and Juno who are allowed to have bad days but no-one ever seems to worry about _Ben_ ever biting back, do they? Maybe just once he'd like to snap and yell and scream, too.

But he doesn't, because he never does. He just sighs and keeps his eyes closed as he turns, and tries to keep his tone even.

"Ma, look, I didn't take your goddamn--"

And the world flares hot, and bright.

* * *

  
He's on the floor when he wakes up, and the feet of his rickety bed are fuzzing in and out of focus. The carpet is rough and dusty against his cheek, one of his arms pinned uncomfortably beneath him.

Nothing hurts, though - not even his feet where he'd danced them raw the day before. Maybe that should've been his first clue. But then, he was never the detective.

Someone's shouting from out in the hall, banging on the door. He thinks it's ma at first, just the same-old same-old, must've been what had woken him up. Maybe she lost her key again.

But, then his hearing finally tunes in, and he can hear that it's Juno that's yelling his name and begging to be let in as he pounds on the door.

He sounds scared. Really scared.

Fuzzily, Ben picks himself off the floor and starts to stumble over, feeling lightheaded and weird, like someone's put a pane of glass between him and the rest of the world. He's almost made it to the door when Juno finally tumbles through it, and he's left staring at a wild-eyed, rough-worn version of his own face. There's a bandage running right across the bridge of its nose, a new addition that will probably leave a new scar to separate them a little further when it heals. Maybe mom'll finally stop getting them mixed up, then. Ben attempts a smile.

"Calm down, Super-Steel," he tries, half-hearted. "Where's the fire?"

Juno looks right through him, and the next few seconds are like watching his own reflection in a mirror as it shatters to pieces.

"No," Juno murmurs, "no, no no no no no." 

Ben blinks. "Juno?"

"Benten!" Juno shouts, and then he lunges... right through him. Towards the back of the room... where...

Oh. Oh, no.

"Benten, wake up, wake - Benzaiten, I swear to god, if you don't - no, no, _please_ no, please..."

"Well, this... sucks," Ben says softly as he stares down at his own corpse, at Juno desperately fumbling for a pulse as if there isn't a scorch-marked blaster hole running right from one side of his head through to the other. No blood, no mess, just an instantly cauterised wound straight through his brain, like a train tunnel. The sight is making him nauseous, but he can't stop looking at it, either. Not until Juno blocks his line of sight by pulling him - pulling his _body_ \- into his lap and curling forward on top of it, clutching it close like when they were little and the two of them used to huddle in a pile in the closet, so tangled up it sometimes felt like there stopped being two of them. Like they'd pressed so close they'd squeezed the hyphens out of the eternal Ben-and-Juno and become just the one person after all, like the egg had never split.

This isn't a merging together, though. This is taking a permanent marker and striking out one half of a phrase, leaving the other floating with nothing to tether itself to.

"Idiot," Juno sobs. "I told you, I _told_ you this would happen, god _damn_ it. You stupid - s-stupid goddamn--"

His throat catches on the next word, and after that he just cries. On and on, loud and broken and raw. The sound alone shakes Ben harder than the sight of his own lifeless body ever could. He's never seen Juno cry like this, not even when they were kids. He hasn't seen him cry at _all_ since they were maybe fourteen, or at least not where Ben could see it. Things had been going well for him anyway, why would he? Things had been looking up for him - for them both. They'd been looking up.

By the time the cops arrive, Juno is quiet. It seems like he doesn't have anything left in him to pour out.

Ben doesn't know what he expected death to be - a bright light, pearly gates, a new set of eyes to open, or maybe even nothing at all. Just a... peaceful void. A rest, finally, from everything. But not this. Not watching his broken other half mumble his way through half a dozen interrogations, too numb for his usual snark or indignance or to put up a fight when they get rough with him, not watching him try to fill his lungs with whiskey, throw himself headlong into bar fights and firefights and any other knife edge he can find to cut his feet on. Not sitting silent and invisible next to him on the kitchen floor at four in the morning, eyes tracking the bottle of pills in Juno's hand as he shakes out one, then two, then three. As he pauses, cups his palm, and pours half the container into it, the excess spilling onto the floor with a sound like loose change falling carelessly out of a wallet.

His eyes are dull with a rabbit's share of alcohol, but Ben can see the gears turning through the fog. Just a few too many, and the hurt will stop forever. With a whole handful, and no-one around to find him, it'd be a sure thing.

"Don't you dare," Ben murmurs into the vacuum-sealed bubble he exists in now. No-one can ever hear him, but a lot of the time he just talks at them anyway, hoping it'll do something. "Don't be an idiot, Juno, c'mon."

As ever, Juno doesn't twitch at the sound of his voice, doesn't even blink - so much for twin telepathy. His free hand gropes clumsily for the neck of the bottle at his side.

 _She thought he was me_ , he'd told the cops in a dull monotone when they'd asked about motive. _She thought he was me_ , he'd said, but Ben's been translating for Juno for nineteen years, and what he really meant was painfully obvious to him, if no-one else. _It should have been me._

"Juno," Ben says, leaning fruitlessly into his line of sight. "Stop it. Stop. You're better than this, Super-Steel, you've got a city to save, you - goddamn it, Juno, _stop!_ "

He knows it won't work, but he tries anyway. He lashes out and slaps at Juno's wrist, and his hand passes right through just like he knew it would, just like it always has done since he took a blaster to the brain, but--

Juno's hand spasms, and the pile of pills clatters onto the floor and across his lap. The bottle of whiskey drops out of his other hand and splashes what little is left in it across the tile, and Juno stares into the middle distance past his fingers with wide eyes, his chest heaving.

After a moment, he snatches up a half-empty bag of something and vomits violently into it.

Ben casts his eyes over the pills scattered across the floor, and thinks that maybe... that's it. Not torture, not aimless purgatory, not a haunting. Just a task. Keep his idiot brother from destroying himself for as long as it takes for things to look up again. He can do that. Juno was always the one throwing himself in the way of a slap, a punch, a thrown bottle or plate or whatever other blow had been meant for Ben before he got in between the two of them. Now it's his turn to keep Juno safe.

Slowly, he crawls forward and wraps his sniffling twin up in a hug he can't feel.

"It's okay, Super-Steel," he whispers. "It's gonna be okay. I've still got your back."

Juno doesn't react outright, but his breath slowly evens out. Softens. Ben wishes he could clean up the floor for when he wakes up, mop away the puddle of whiskey that he's slowly slumping into, but that's beyond what he can manage. 

* * *

He can't actually do much, in the grand scheme of things - only ever a nudge, but as it turns out, a nudge is often enough. A second thought, a glance to the side, a momentary blaster malfunction, a bullet that curves out of its trajectory just so. Little spinning silver coins of luck, just enough to keep a furiously angry and desperately sad young lady with a death wish alive a little longer. Every day, just a little longer.

* * *

Ben sees a lot happen, in the following years. Sees Juno fall further into and then slowly drag himself away from the harder stuff and back onto his feet through nights of shivering, sweating withdrawal, sees him strike up an unsteady but somehow also rock-solid friendship with the weirdest secretary on the entire planet - or, actually, maybe any planet - who Ben likes immensely, and not just because she's the only person since he left the picture who can convince Detective Super-Steel to take a goddamn break every once in a while. He sees his prickly-skinned twin with his walled-up heart fall in love hard enough to actually plan a wedding, and tries to be grateful when he's not needed quite so much. It's a little boring, not to have to give those constant little nudges in the right direction, to fall back to the sidelines and just watch things unfold, but Juno looks happy, sometimes. He smiles - not often, but more often than never. Things are looking up again. 

Then he sees Juno's career explode like a letter bomb in his hands, sees his coworkers rub salt in the wound and spit in his face, sees his marriage collapse before it ever really got built and his wedding dress shoved shamefully into the back of a closet, sees that bottle of whiskey reappear with a vengeance and spends more nights than he really wants to count leaning against the wall next to the entrance of the Vixen Valley, waiting for Juno to stumble back out. Hoping that the pills or needles won't make a reappearance as well, giving well-meaning nudges where he can and wishing every time that he could do more. More than anything, he just wishes Juno could hear him - and that's not just for Juno's sake, either.

It's lonely, this parallel existence he's ended up not-living in. Sometimes there are others, briefly, sometimes Juno will brush against someone and he'll catch a flicker of a figure in his periphery, sometimes if the contact lasts longer, in hotel rooms or bars or here, at Vicky's, he can even have something like a conversation. A couple of times, something more physical - a collision of lonely ghosts desperate for some contact, however long they can get.

He'd been a little selfishly disappointed to discover that there was no-one attached to Juno's fiancée, at the time. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to long-term, maybe a friend. Not that it really matters now. He waits around, and he nudges the odds so that the hammer never hits the chamber with the bullet in it no matter how many times Juno puts the gun to his head, and he tries to find his companionship where he can get it. 

* * *

Eventually, things stabilise. An office in a decent part of town, a new career and a steady stream of clients, even if most of them are only concerned with who's sleeping with who. Sometimes Ben can even help with that. He's unwittingly privy - unwittingly on the part of the people he's spying on, at least - to a lot of things that happen behind closed doors, flying across and through the city as he pleases, as long as he doesn't stray _too_ far away from Juno. Sometimes it's just a matter of directing the good detective's attention to the right file, making sure the right photograph lands on the top of the pile when the stack falls.

He'd figure things out on his own eventually, obviously - Juno didn't get this far by being anything less than a first-rate detective, despite what he thinks - but a little extra help never hurt anyone. And even better, not even Juno can push away help he doesn't realise he's getting.

The day things start to change again starts out pretty much like any other. Ben is watching one of Rita's streams over her shoulder, leaning against the back of her chair and offering the occasional unheard but obviously hilarious commentary while Juno sits in his office, doing whatever it is he's doing. Probably brooding. Occasionally Ben will reach his hand into Rita's bag of salmon snacks and pull out a handful of atom-perfect copies for himself. Not his favourite food in the world, and they're not technically _real_ in the traditional sense, but they taste like _something_ and sometimes it's nice to pretend like everything is normal for a while.

Well, kind of normal. After all, if Rita could actually see him, she'd probably have his hand for stealing her snacks.

Then there's a phone call. And after that phone call, a man with legs so long they go on into next week and sharp, bright eyes behind his standard-issue Dark Matters sunglasses. He has Rita wrapped around his finger in about three seconds flat - although, to tell the truth that's not really saying much. Rita's very suggestible, and even more so when the suggester looks like they could moonlight as a catwalk model. 

Ben takes a moment to perform the kind of slow, thorough up-and-down stare that would probably be considered rude if anybody could see it. Thankfully, though, nobody can, so he can look for as long as he likes. 

"Man," he says, with a low whistle as the guy smiles and exposes a set of sharp canines that make him look like a sexy vampire from one of Rita's old, cheesy Earth flicks, "If Juno doesn't make a move on _you_ I'll know he's really dead inside."

Speaking of Juno, though, there's some kind of commotion going on in his office. Quiet, but Ben was listening for it. This isn't the first time Juno's opted to take the window instead of facing down whoever's at the door. Usually, though, that's a jilted client, and not a very attractive Dark Matters agent. 

He considers running in there and jamming the thing, but in the end he doesn't have to; Juno's too scared of the drop and the worryingly rickety fire escape to make a particularly quick exit, and so the agent has more than enough time to catch him in the act.

This is gonna be hilarious.

Ben half-expects the man - _Rex Glass_ \- to express some kind of offense at seeing his partner for the day bolting on him before they've even met, but... he doesn't. A half-second of surprise, a flicking of eyes behind his glasses that Ben is pretty sure is directed towards Juno's ass, beautifully presented as it is with his leg hiked over the windowsill and his coat pulled aside for maneuverability, and Agent Glass looks absolutely _delighted_.

Ben grins, too, watching Glass stride over to the window and immediately start flirting like his life depends on it, and grins wider watching Juno getting more and more flustered by the second. Today's gonna be a fun one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope this wasn't too rough of a start for everyone, there's a lot more lighthearted stuff to come, I promise
> 
> I think this is looking to end up somewhere around 30-40k just going by what I have written already and what I have left to go, and I don't have an update schedule planned - I was gonna wait until the whole thing was done before posting, honestly, but I couldn't resist putting at least just this first one out lol
> 
> If you enjoyed it, kudos and especially comments are a really big motivator for me to write more & faster! I really really appreciate them even if I don't reply ❤


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murderous mask time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Warnings for this chapter:
> 
> \- Canon-typical injuries  
> \- References to canon-typical alcohol abuse & drug usage  
> \- References to past child abuse/neglect & Ben's death, in passing
> 
> I think that's it? Let me know if I've missed anything and pls enjoy!

So, maybe "fun" was a bit of an overstatement.

 _Interesting_ might have been a better word, or maybe _deadly_. Both usually apply where the Kanagawas are involved, and when you throw a very attractive and shamelessly flirtatious Dark Matters agent into the mix, the result is even more potent - a bit like powdered cyanide, or arsenic-flavoured lipstick. You can say a lot of things about Cecil Kanagawa, but you could never accuse him of not being committed to his brand, even if you weren't living in fear of a gang of camera-laden mobsters showing up at your door if you did. Even with his brother tied to a chair and the hairdryer from hell threatening to make a smoothie out of his head, Ben has to admit the man's got style.

What he doesn't have a lick of, on the other hand, is tact - or maybe he just makes a deliberate choice not to use it if he does. Bringing up Juno's career implosion, social isolation and dead twin all in one shot kind of seems like the polar opposite of what someone who's desperate to be his best friend for life would do, but Cecil probably thinks he's doing him a favour, in his own twisted way. Audiences love an underdog, right?

Glass's eyes widen at that last little fun fact, though, and he looks... genuinely sympathetic, as he tries to glance back at Juno out of the corner of his eye. The guy _acts_ like a bit of an airhead, to be sure, wandering off on far-flung tangents and seeming more intent on getting in Juno's pants than saving him from a supposed ancient curse or, god forbid, actually solving the case they're here for, but Ben's pretty sure there's more to him than that - flashes like these where those waters seem to run much deeper than he lets on. It's interesting. Ben's keeping an eye on it.

"What?" Glass says quietly, "Juno..."

"Don't say anything," Juno growls, like a dog showing teeth. He won't bite outright, not really, but all the barking and snapping does a pretty good job of convincing people that he might. People other than Ben, anyway. Maybe Rita, too, with how long she's stuck around.

"You gotta let it heal sometime, man," Ben sighs, checking the straps of the chair for any frayed threads to pull or rusted links to nudge towards their demise and stepping back with a pouted puff of air when he finds none. "If you actually manage to get outta here."

* * *

Problem is, Juno's never been much good at letting things heal - not scraped knees, not broken noses, and not childhood trauma, either. Juno's self-care routine generally consists of pressing on still dripping blood until the wound ends up a festering scab or he passes out and someone can get close enough to patch him up, like Glass is doing now. He's doing a pretty good job, too, at least with the physical stuff. As for the rest of it... well, good luck to him, if he wants to try kicking that Hanuman hornets' nest.

"Juno… about your brother--" Rex starts out of the silence, and Ben grimaces. Nest, meet foot.

" _Don't_ ," Juno snaps, voice raw. Glass seems to retract slightly, though not completely. He purses his lips as he turns back to rifle through the first aid kit again.

"I apologize if I pried. I didn't realise… the topic would be so personal."

Ben gives his head an incredulous shake, sighing to himself. Clearly Rex Glass was an only child.

When he looks back at Juno, his mouth is twisted up on itself, and his eyes are screwed up tight as he takes a fortifying breath. "Look, Rex… remember how I said my mother never killed me?"

Now that he's taken off his shades, Glass' eyes stand out so dark they're almost black, but somehow they manage to be bright and warm all the same. "...Yes."

"Well my brother wasn't so lucky," Juno says quietly, with an air of finality that declares the end of that discussion. Ben's honestly surprised Glass got even that much out of him - that must be the most Juno's talked about what happened in years, maybe ever. He'd been surprised that Juno had brought mom up at all earlier, even if he had changed the subject quickly after; he's always been more inclined to clam up and snip off a curious finger or two when people try to prod him about his childhood than talk about _her_.

About... Sarah.

It had taken some deliberation, but Ben had gone to her funeral, in the end. Left Juno in the loving embrace of two large bottles of whiskey and a few things more unnameable and wandered over to the crematorium where an official preached formalities to an empty room, save for him. Ben couldn't decide whether he felt bad about that or not. For everything she'd done to them... he'd never given up on Sarah Steel. But sitting there, it had felt, finally, like it was too late to fix things. Like he'd failed, or maybe that it had all just been pointless from the beginning.

The door had slid open at one point, and both he and the official had turned to look at who else would have bothered to show, but whoever it was had clearly changed their mind before the door had even finished opening, because the frame was empty.

Maybe that was understandable. Maybe it wasn't. Ben had sat through the whole thing and remained there for at least an hour afterwards, and by the end of it he still hadn't managed to untie the knot of emotions in his chest that only got tighter the longer he spent staring at the years-old photograph of the woman who gave him his life and then shortly took it away again.

Then the cleaners had come in, and the photo got taken off the screen and deleted out of existence, and that was that. He doesn't really think about it. Juno doesn't ever talk about it. Which is why this is all so weird.

"I'm… so sorry, Juno," Glass offers quietly - and that's never gonna stop being weird, either, hearing people solemnly apologise to his brother for what happened to him, like he's not even there. It always makes his stomach lurch, just a little bit, like vertigo. And Juno's reaction is the same as ever, too; he bristles, broken-glass edges bared outwards once again.

"I'm not telling you that so you'll be sorry. I'm telling you that so you won't ask me any more goddamn questions about it. Just drop it, alright? It's done. It's over," he mutters, but Ben can see the telltale way he lifts his chin just slightly, the way he always does when he's trying not to cry. He sits down on the floor next to him and leans up against his shoulder, laying his hand over Juno's free one and squeezing.

"Miss you, too, buddy," he sighs. Probably a weird thing to say when Juno is alive and well and sitting right next to him, but it's true.

Juno always gave the best hugs, when you could actually coax one out of him, and Ben was always the reigning champion of that particular sport. He could always wheedle his way into a hug when he wanted one, slip past the prickliness and flaring heat of the exterior to curl up in the warm, shining core Juno always tried so hard to hide from everyone else. It was a privilege, and one he was good at earning over and over again, as many times as he needed to. And hell, some days he really needed to.

These days, he's figured out how to wrap his arms around Juno if he wants to, instead of just phasing through him, but it's never the same. It's like hugging a statue made out of blood and bone instead of marble or glass - no give in it. No warmth. No squeeze around his ribcage that stops only the barest sliver away from being too hard. That's probably one of the things he misses most, being like this. What he wouldn't give for Juno to scoff at him and cuff him round the ear for being an idiot, only to undercut himself by pulling him in close and crushing all the air out of his lungs. God, what he wouldn't give.

He hopes Glass is appreciating what he's getting here, with a still-woozy Juno letting him help him to his feet, letting just a little bit of that warmth leak out as he stumbles into him. Honestly, Juno's never gone after a single person who appreciates him like he deserves, but there's a first time for everything, right?

Then again, maybe not. Optimism isn't a trait that gets you much of anywhere in Hyperion. Other than a one-way trip to the morgue.

* * *

It's really a shame, how things turn out. Ben likes Cass, and he knows Juno does too, in an understandably wary sort of way. She didn't deserve Hoosegow, or her father's blood on her hands, but... sometimes bad things just happen, and there's nothing you can do about it. Ben knows that first-hand.

Juno, though... Juno's gonna do what he always does when he thinks he's failed, most likely. Some variation on finding somewhere dark and cozy with a steady supply of alcohol and drinking until he passes out.

Unless...

Well, a cold gust of wind in the middle of the night isn't hard to come by. If it gives two people standing out in the neon-painted dark of the street a reason to huddle closer together, why not, right?

Makes a nice change that Glass is doing half his work for him, honestly - if nudging Juno is like trying to push a boulder up a mountain, working with Glass is like kicking one off the top and watching it go. Which means maybe Ben can't take all the credit for getting Juno some action tonight, but he's more than happy to, in the absence of any impartial judge to say otherwise.

Glass, or whatever he wants to call himself, lifts his hand to Juno's wrist, then his cheek - and a man in a white suit appears across the room, leaning up against the windowsill. Ben perks up at the sight, breaks into a smile.

"Hey there!"

The man doesn't even look at him, too focused on the figure currently pinning Juno up against his own table. Ben's a little jealous of him right now, he has to admit, but taking priority on the agenda is the fact that Juno's prospective beau has a shadow too - and an _interesting_ one.

"He's not who he says he is, you know."

Ben snickers a little, watching _Rex Glass_ 's hand sneak into Juno's pocket while he's otherwise occupied. "Yeah, I'd say that's pretty obvious."

The man finally spares him a glance, his eyes large and yellow and oddly cold, and raises an eyebrow as he does. "And that isn't something that bothers you?"

"Not really," Ben shrugs. "As long as he actually cares." He directs his attention back towards Glass, who's still continuing his tour of Juno's mouth even though he already got what he needed a good few seconds ago by now. "Which... I think maybe he might."

"What if I told you that man killed me in cold blood when he was just seventeen years old?"

Ben casts the man a sideways look. Honestly, that probably still wouldn't make him the worst person he's ever seen Juno making eyes at. "Then... I'd ask why you were still sticking around to look after him."

The man makes a sound that's somewhere between a snort and a scoff. "Look after him? How do you know I'm not here to enact my continued revenge?"

"Because - that's what we're all here to do, right?" Ben frowns. "That's... kind of the whole point of guardian angels. You keep 'em safe." He shakes his head, watching Juno's bandaged-up hand as it does some sneaking of its own. "Or... safe- _ish_."

The man stares at him, for a solid few seconds. Then he lets out an incredulous snort, and then another, and then a whole series of them until the sound turns into an outright guffaw. It is, with respect, pretty goddamn creepy.

"A _guardian angel_ , is it?" the man laughs, and keeps on laughing, and laughing, until Juno finally pushes that very pretty bad idea away from him to the harsh snap of closing handcuffs, and he disappears.

Well, whatever. Glass is more interesting anyway; Ben might have expected him to look annoyed - cowed, even, at being caught completely red-handed, Juno's keys all present and accounted for in his inside pocket, but not for the first time today this _Glass_ defies expectations. His eyes are practically _sparkling_ with interest as he watches Juno call the cops on him and start delivering a lecture and an interrogation all in one. Really, that routine tends to be a turn-off for most people.

He's also scribbling something behind his back, but finishes and slips the pen into his back pocket and the paper between the sofa cushions before Ben can get a good look. Weird. Maybe it's a love note. Ben kind of hopes it is, even if this guy does seem to be a thief and a scoundrel and a supposed murderer - criminal inclinations aside, he seems to genuinely give a damn about Juno and his wellbeing, which is more than can be said for at least half of the other people Juno has brought home over the years.

It's only after the cops have been and gone and Glass is on his way to Hoosegow along with Cassandra that Ben actually gets a chance to confirm his suspicions, reading over Juno's shoulder with his chin resting on the worn fabric of his coat. Peter Nureyev - huh. Well, it's pretty. A little sharp. It suits him from the looping whorl of the _P_ down to the smooth-struck line that crosses the _T_ and ends in a dangerous unsheathed point.

Juno, ever the romantic, crumples the note in his fist, fumbles his comms from his pocket, casually orders Rita to do the impossible, and then makes for his monitor - he knows how to turn this one on, at least. A few moments' frantic channel-hopping, and there's the cruiser they carted Nureyev away in, complete with a couple of tasteful semi-nude decorations. Ben lifts his eyebrows as he leans up against the back of the chair.

"You sure do know how to pick 'em, Super-Steel."

And Juno knows it, too. Once he's done yelling at Sasha, he slumps down on his couch, covers his face with his hands and lets out a groan loud enough to wake the dead. But, Ben's already awake, so he just settles for laughing at him. Gotta take your punchlines where you can get 'em, after all, even the impact costs you a few teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a kudos and/or comment for me to enjoy too! ❤
> 
> Also, if it's not already obvious, I'll be moving pretty quickly over a lot of canon here, cause like.... 1. If you're here, I'm assuming you've already listened to it and don't need to hear it all completely rehashed lol, and 2. That's a whole lotta content!! The focus here is mainly gonna be on ben's reactions/gaps between the canon events, cause that's where the fun new stuff is!


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